Its been quite a while since their last manned mission.
To recap, Shenzhou 5 put their first Taikonaut into orbit in October 2003 which was followed two years later by the two-crew Shenzhou 6. And then in 2008, Shenzhou 7 went up with three men, with EVA by two of them.
The upcoming Shenzhou 9 (last year's Shenzhou 8 was unmanned) will also carry three persons. It will be interesting to see if it will include their first woman Taikonaut or she will feature only in Shenzhou 10 (to be launched this year or the next).

Ok, so it will be that one of the two women - either Liu Yang or Wang Yaping, both of whom are 34 year old pilots in the People's Liberation Army Air Force and married with children - will be on Shenzhou 9 when it blasts off on its planned June 16 launch.

Shenzhou 9 launched on schedule at 6.37pm local time, Saturday, June 16 with the first woman taikonaut Liu Yang who contrary to earlier reports is not a mother yet. The other crew members are Jing Haipeng and Liu Wang
Little tiivia: 1) a minor record was set; the commander Jing Haipeng became the first astronaut/cosmonaut/taikonaut to blast off on a nation's back to back missions. He was on the preceeding Shenzhou 7 in September 25, 2008.
2) its the second time that a spaceship contained 2 persons with the same family name. The first was in January 12 1986 on Space Shuttle Columbia with Bill Nelson and George Nelson. Both pairs of Liu Yang/Liu Wang and Bill Nelson/George Nelson are similaritly unrelated to each other.

Quoting neutrino (Reply 5):Little tiivia: 1) a minor record was set; the commander Jing Haipeng became the first astronaut/cosmonaut/taikonaut to blast off on a nation's back to back missions. He was on the preceeding Shenzhou 7 in September 25, 2008.

Negative on point #1: Astronaut Stephen Bowen was crew on STS-132 and STS-133. Back to back Space Shuttle missions.

I seem to remember another mission with same last names. It escapes me currently and I will have to check the files on that.

Quoting eksath (Reply 6):Negative on point #1: Astronaut Stephen Bowen was crew on STS-132 and STS-133. Back to back Space Shuttle missions.

You are right in Stephen Bowen being on back to back shuttle missions.

However, my defination is broader; a nation's manned space mission and not vessel or vessel-type specific. To make your counter view murkier, in between STS-132 & STS-133, the US did send 4 of its spacefarers; Shannon Walker, Douglas Wheelock, Scott Kelly & Catherine Coleman to orbit via three Soyuz crafts.
Michael Melvill on the private venture SpaceShipOne did fly back to back sub-orbital flights...this one stand a better chance of challenging my observation on Jing Haipeng.

Anyway, to narrow your point even further, George Nelson was the first to be on successful back to back space shuttle flights in which the spacecrafts went into orbit and subsequently returned to earth; on STS-61-C and STS-26. Shuttle STS-52-L in between those two missions was the ill-fated Challenger which exploded during liftoff (RIP to Francis Scobee, Michael Smith, Judith Resnik, Ellison Onizuka, Ronald McNair, Gregory Jarvis & Christa McAuliffe).

And also just for more fun of (pedantic) facts, Liu Yang is NOT the first China-born woman in space. That honor went to Shannon Lucid who was born in Shanghai and grew up in Oklahoma, but I digress.

Quoting eksath (Reply 6):I seem to remember another mission with same last names. It escapes me currently and I will have to check the files on that.

Would be interesting to know. I searched the astronauts list but failed to come up with anything. Maybe my bleary eyes missed it after scanning through hundreds of names.

I see what you are looking for. I consider the Soyuz missions to be metal belonging to "other nations" even if it paid for by US tax dollars. I would note the widespread recognition inside NASA for Bowen and his successive flights (approx 9 months apart).

Quoting neutrino (Reply 8):Liu Yang is NOT the first China-born woman in space. That honor went to Shannon Lucid who was born in Shanghai and grew up in Oklahoma, but I digress.

And if you factor in US Astronaut Leroy Chiao (both parents are Chinese and they fled China), he is "really" an ethnic Chinese despite being born in the US, he predates all the Chinese astronauts and has accomplished many more feats/milestones too!

Quoting neutrino (Reply 8):private venture SpaceShipOne did fly back to back sub-orbital flights

And in other news, co-incidental or otherwise, a PRC submersible has on the same day descended to below 7km in the Mariana Trench; the greatest depth accomplished by the Middle Kingdom's oceanauts. The Jiaolong also set the world depth record for a manned research vessel.
In case anyone attempt to mention the Challenger Deep missions of the 1960 Trieste and James Cameron's recent Deepsea Challenger, these two bathyscaphes could not navigate horizontally along the bottom of the sea bed and therefore had very limited scientific exploration capability.
Different "animals" but as this is divergence from the topic, I shall not delve into greater detail.

And in other news, co-incidental or otherwise, a PRC submersible has on the same day descended to below 7km in the Mariana Trench; the greatest depth accomplished by the Middle Kingdom's oceanauts. The Jiaolong also set the world depth record for a manned research vessel.

This is wonderful news that China Space teams and astronauts on orbit accomplished their first successful manual docking of the Shenzou 9 with the Chinse orbital lab.

I see quite a good possibility of the Chinese being the next humans to step foot on the Moon.

Quoting neutrino (Reply 11):Of course statistics and "facts" can be spinned any which way.

Another fact that cannot be ignored or magically forgotten is that it is the Russians who sold the Chinese the plans and know how and how to pull this off. So yes.. the transfer of the plans and technology of the Russian Soyuz spacecraft,the training, life support systems, docking systems, and space suits in 1994/1995 are facts that a lot of people forget or are not aware off. This helped the Chinese to "leap forward" to 1966.

Gemini 8 did the first successful docking between two spacecraft on March 16, 1966

China is on their fourth manned mission, and they have already docked with their own space station. Sure, the Soyuz was used as a base, but its not a straight copy - the Chinese variant is larger, and contains a large percentage of completely home grown technology.

Whenever a country has its own manned space program there will always be "firsts" for that country - that doesnt mean they are playing a 40 year game of catch up, it just means they are things that need to be done for them to be done!

I rest my case (thanks for saving my breath, moo), but feel free to put in your last words if that will make you happier.

Again back to the thread topic.
The "Divine Vessel no.9" has landed!
13-day mission accomplished.
A landmark chapter successfully closed and on to the next continuing steps of Shenzhou 10 and beyond.

Compared to the two pioneers, China's progress in her effort to conquer the final frontier has been excrutiatingly slow. But like the proverbial tortise chasing after the hare, she could one day pass them by as evidenced below. That being said I wish the good old US of A will in the not too distant future rediscover their Apollo and Saturn5 spirit...and go where no man has gone before.
Reuters, Friday, Jun 29, 2012: The United States will not test a new rocket to take people into space until 2017, and Russia has said manned missions are no longer a priority.
China plans an unmanned moon landing and deployment of a moon rover and its scientists have raised the possibility of sending a man to the moon, but not before 2020.